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Mara Jade
Mara Jade was one an Emperor's Hand during the early days of the Galactic Civil War. She carried out the Emperor's bidding, killing Rebels and corrupt Imperials alike with cold professionalism even as a young woman. After Palpatine's death, she received his last command, which was to kill Luke Skywalker; however, the death of her Master caused her to go rogue. Eventually she joined Talon Karrde, becoming one of his best smugglers and his second-in-command. She eventually encountered Skywalker, and developed a grudging respect for him. A fateful encounter in 9 ABY finally broke Jade of her desire to kill Skywalker. Biography Early life (17 BBY–4 ABY) * See the article on Wookiepedia: Early Life On the run (4 ABY–6 ABY) Her hatred of Skywalker for destroying her master burned deep within her, and she vowed to kill the Jedi Knight. She was unaware that the Emperor's telepathic command lay at the core of this rage, making it stronger than any normal wish for vengeance would be. Meanwhile, her life was in shambles: the resources she had once had access to were all dependent on the Emperor, and her life of luxury, privilege and purpose was over. Still hunted by Isard, she made her way through the galaxy, doing odd jobs and manual labor to make ends meet. Her Force abilities faded, returning in ill-timed bursts. All the while, she was still haunted by the Emperor's last command: "You will kill Luke Skywalker." During her travels, she landed on Kintoni, where she spotted the Rebel general Crix Madine. Mara followed him and infiltrated the building to see Madine interrogating former Imperial Governor Barkale. Mara made her way towards the imprisoned governor and found a datapad showing the Executor along the way. However, she was stopped in Madine's quarters by the general, who pulled a blaster on her and called for reinforcements. Mara shot his gun and used the datapad to display the image of the Executor on the sensor screens, tricking the Rebels into thinking the ship was after them. Mara stunned the guards and made a deal with Madine to let her and Barkale escape. Barkale took her back to his home, but Mara noticed a sculpture that he had reported stolen or destroyed years ago, along with many other pieces of artwork. When she accused him of treasonous embezzlement, Barkale threw a vase at her. Mara, undaunted, executed him, and then informed Madine of her discovery while she got off the planet, figuring that the Rebels would have found the artwork anyway and executing Barkale was worth it. Smuggler (6 ABY–9 ABY) Around 6 ABY, Mara Jade came to meet Talon Karrde. After doing an odd job for him or two, she formally entered his organization in 8 ABY. During her first six months of working with Karrde, Mara swiftly rose through the ranks of his smuggling organization. Her Force-sensitivity, lying largely dormant since the death of Palpatine, reasserted itself when she brought Karrde's freighter, the Wild Karrde out of hyperspace for a routine check right where Luke Skywalker's damaged X-wing was floating in space. The Empire had posted a significant bounty on Skywalker and Karrde considered the possibility of selling him to the Empire for the bounty or extorting money from the New Republic to ensure his return. Karrde pulled the stranded Jedi aboard and took him back to his base on Myrkr, where the planet's ysalamiri creatures blocked Skywalker's Force abilities. Jade was at first intent on killing Skywalker, but Karrde would not have it. Luke managed to escape in a Skipray blastboat. Mara gave chase, but both vehicles ended up crashing in the vornskr-infested forest. To complicate matters, their communications equipment had been destroyed in the crash, preventing the two from making contact with Karrde. Mara was forced to work with Luke to survive, and she clearly stated her intention to kill him. The two made their way to Hyllyard City after fending off several vornskr attacks. Beleagured by their journey, Mara refrained from trying to kill Luke then and there. However, she tracked him off the planet and set up an ambush... Mara finally tracked Luke to Dac in the Calamari system. The battle was getting hot and heavy as the Empire under Vadim was in the process of taking the planet back from the New Republic. The now rogue Emperor's Hand, trained since a child to be a consummate infiltrator and assassin, fully intended to use the chaos of war to cloak her from notice. Skywalker would be distracted by the Imperials, by the suffering of the Mon Calamari and Quarrens... This was her chance to finally satisfy the Emperor's voice in her head, to make the Jedi Knight pay for murdering her mentor and stealing her life from her. This was the only purpose in life that she had left. Things went perfectly as planned. Luke moved, Mara stalked him by shrouding her presence in the Dark Side until she had him trapped in an undersea cave between her lightsaber and impenetrable sea rock. That's when everything, everything went wrong. Her rage and fear had made this personal. The voice whispering in her mind had made her obsessed. She wanted to -watch- Luke die. She wanted to make it slow. She got too close. Luke, recognizing the torment Mara was in, reached out to her with both the Force and his own person. He explained that Vader had been the one to kill Palpatine, that she didn't have to live like this anymore. What little bit of her own true self that was hidden under all those years of training and all the corruption of the Dark Side was slowly and cunningly coaxed out by Luke. Eventually Mara broke and embraced her newly revealed and badly shattered sense of self. She overpowered the urge to kill Luke, allowing her desire to both heal and find a new purpose to silence the Emperor's Voice forever. The Long Walk (9ABY-19ABY) Declining Luke's offer to train, Mara fled Dac and went back to the Outer Rim territories. She wandered through space for a couple of years, slowly relearning herself and atoning for Dark Side that she had embraced so long. Bit by bit, she gained some control over her deep connection to the Force, but it was never enough to allow her true reliance. She spent five years in the depths of the Mutandan jungles, with some of the Mashi Horansi mystics. It took a long time for her to be accepted there fully, but she found peace in their simple, perhaps brutal way of life. She became an adopted outsider, a non-Horansi member of a certain clan. Here, she continued to atone herself of the Dark Side. Rejoined the Smuggler Alliance after her stay on Mutanda. However, after two years, she grew restless and discontent, causing her to move on again. This time to Onderon. She spent a year fighting the beasts when she finally came to a decision about her life, having taken the last ten years to absolve herself from the corruption of the Dark Side. Packing up, she flies to the newly liberated Coruscant with every intention of facing Luke Skywalker again and asking him to finally train her in the Jedi Order.